Planners get chance to sculpt Two Town

Lolita Harper

Segerstrom representatives tonight will ask the Planning

Commission to consider plans for an 18-story building and

accompanying five-story parking structure as part of the Two Town

Center master plan, the latest version of what has been a

controversial city development.

The 18.23-acre center is bounded by Anton Boulevard, the San Diego

Freeway, Bristol Street and Avenue of the Arts and houses a host of

office buildings, restaurants, a movie theater, retail and the

outdoor Naguchi garden sculpture.

The proposed project calls for the demolition of Edwards Cinema

and its existing parking structure on Park Center Drive -- the street

that runs through Two Town Center -- to make way for the construction

of a 400,000-square-foot building.

Unlike with the previous legal showdown regarding Two Town Center

and the Naguchi gardens, city officials have asserted that none of

the proposed changes in this project will harm the sculptures.

In prior negotiations for the approval of the entire Two Town

Center project, which called for the redevelopment of the area into

an upgraded office plaza with a pedestrian-oriented emphasis on the

theater and arts, city leaders were concerned that the walls of a

parking structure abutting the garden also be protected from

demolition.

Claire Flynn, the lead city planner on this project, said the

Edwards parking structure marked for demolition is not the same one

that is considered by Naguchi scholars to be “an integral element of

the artistic ensemble of the garden.”

The Naguchi parking structure is safely positioned on the other

side of Park Center Drive, a site map shows, far from the wrecking

balls and bulldozers.

The most recent environmental study for the center, approved by

the City Council in February of 2001, examined the effects of a

10-story office building, with 122,500 less square feet than what is

being proposed. While the office component of the project before the

Planning Commission Monday is almost twice as large, this proposal

does not include an 11-story office, retail and restaurant mixed-use

building that was included in previous studies.

More recent analysis has also examined the anticipated shade and

shadows resulting from an 18-story building. According to a staff

report, subsequent shadows would fall largely on property in Two Town

Center. For the short time that shade would descend on outside

property, but the staff report states it would not affect any

residences, churches, schools or other “sensitive land uses.”

Planning staff has recommended approval of the project, provided

that developer Commonwealth Partners screen the parking structure

with plants and change the Anton Boulevard intersection to

accommodate an extension of the right-hand turn pocket for the

building’s entrance.

* LOLITA HARPER covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at lolita.harper@latimes.com.